Saturday, 11 January 2014

The Civil Wars of Roger Ailes - "Roger Ailes sometimes refers to Rupert Murdoch's media empire as a pirate ship. Since launching Fox News in 1996, Ailes's legendary temper and gyrating moods made him stand out, even among Murdoch's band of buccaneering media figures, like New York Post editor Col Allan and book publisher Judith Regan. Ailes said things that other executives just did not say. But after leaving NBC following a nasty management dispute with NBC executive David Zaslav, which culminated with Ailes allegedly calling him 'a little fucking Jew prick,' Ailes arrived at News Corp, the place where, finally, Ailes could be Ailes. The corporate Darwinism Murdoch fostered was in practice no different from the brutal environment of a political campaign."

Middle East Security in 2014 - Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel (1999-2001) and Minister of Defense (2009-2013)writes how the Middle East is a region where predictions go to die. "And the region’s recent turbulence has made forecasting the course of events there even more treacherous. But, as became increasingly clear in 2013, the main source of the Middle East’s crises is not a 'clash of civilizations,' but a clash within Islam, centered on the Sunni-Shia divide."

A Brother's Vengeance: The Preacher Who Could Topple Erdogan - "The greatest threat yet to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan comes from a former ally. Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen and his influential followers seem determined to accomplish what the recent protest movement could not: overthrowing the current regime."